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(WJW) – On December 21, people can witness something they haven’t seen for nearly 800 years.
That’s right, during the impending winter solstice, Jupiter and Saturn line up to create an incredibly bright marvelous star, or what is known as the “Christmas Star” or the “Star of Bethlehem”.
These two planets have not appeared (relatively) close to Earth’s observation point since the Middle Ages.
“Alignment between these two planets is quite rare, occurring once every 20 years or so, but this coupling is extremely rare due to how close the planets are to each other,” said Patrick Hartigan, astronomer of the Rice University, Forbes said. “You will have to return before sunrise on March 4, 1226, to see a closer alignment between these objects visible in the night sky.”
Northern hemisphere astronomers have to turn their heads and telescopes toward the southwestern part of the sky about 45 minutes after sunset to see the planets on December 21.
According to Forbes, seeing stars of this size won’t repeat until 2080.
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